On Fri, 04 Jul 2003 17:11:32 GMT, (Charles Hawtrey)
wrote:

The ICC is noble in principle but unworkable in practice. The guilty
can easily evade justice by having sham trials in their own countries,
while well-meaning peacekeepers will be subject to an endless
annoyance of frivolous prosecutions.

No, that's a misunderstanding. The ICC was set up exactly to avoid
that kind of impunity, by giving the ICC the ultimate jurisdiction.

Otoh, by officially refusing to sign and indeed fighting the ICC bully
tooth and claw, the Bush Administration is saying loud and clear to
the world, that -it- would refuse to surrender an American suspect to
the ICC even if the Court found the U.S. investigation or prosecution
to have been a complete sham.

In essence, US reaction to the establishment of an International
Criminal Court has been to try to force through the establishment of
international law as one for American citizens -- and another for the
rest of the world. It is a classic case of American double standards,
easy to see for the rest of us, but strangely invisible to Americans.